Saturday lunchtime. The boys are watching their latest obsession. Tom and Jerry, which is bringing back all sorts of memories of Saturday afternoons/whenever on earth it used to be on TV back in the 80s. I’ve just got in from a very helpful morning at the women’s prayer breakfast at church. Pastries, good coffee, lovely chats with others and space to remember the invisible world I forget is still all around me.

I haven’t felt at all like writing anything here for these last two weeks. My head has been a trail of reductionist blergh. I’ve been moaning. Complaining. Weary. Frustrated. Resentful. Still coughing after 3 weeks. Shouty. Stressed. Wondering if I was a different person if I would be coping better. Wondering if our world will ever be normal again. My boys have suffered under my stress anger. I’ve found myself just as confused as them as to what is going on.

Much of that is still there. This morning though I sat in a circle with some women and listened as we talked about what God is like, as we spoke truth about his tender care, his loving ways, his trustworthy heart. I sat and looked as a small baby wriggled in its mothers arms/sling and cried in frustration. I felt the frustration in me echoed in that tiny person. I sensed again the sling holding me to my divine parents chest. The arms that comfort me in the anger and pain of not getting what I want and being unable to express my need clearly.

Somehow hope has crept in again. All I can see is the grim situation we are in and yet somehow I have been touched deep in my tender soul and can feel the tears welling as I have encountered again the safe and close love of God. It defies explanation but I am glad. Glad of a church to belong to that provides such spaces. Glad we are not alone. Glad the frustration is being soothed and glad I don’t have to just write a list of my moans to sum up the last two weeks.

In other news we’ve enjoyed the sunshine. The annual membership to a local farm has proved its worth time and again as we’ve had a known space to escape to where the boys can enjoy lots of physical outdoor play and we can sit. I have loved running in the daylight and even an evening run last night gave me a glimpse that dark running is over soon for the year and I have made it through winter. We have made it through winter and spring growth is all around. We are still in a very small world. A forest glade with no view but lots of green invading the floor.

We trudge on. Today slightly less wearily than recently. The fog of these few weeks has lifted a little and I’ll stop with the metaphors now. Lunch calls.